Free Republic

A huge fire tore through a bar in Thailand's capital Bangkok late on Sunday, killing at least 28 people and leaving 25 critically injured. The blaze started near the stage of the bar in the popular Chatuchak district, then spread rapidly, cutting power and engulfing the room with smoke, eyewitnesses say. Footage posted online shows panicked customers screaming as they fled – some with their clothes on fire – through the flame-enveloped front door of Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao. Firefighters, who arrived at the scene just after midnight, quickly extinguished the fire. They found the bodies of most of...

Anyone wishing to gain entry into Thailand will soon be required to show proof of receiving at least two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine prior to their arrival. The measure will apply to all arrivals in the kingdom regardless of nationality. The Ministry of Public Health is planning to reintroduce the old entry requirement amid concerns that Chinese tourists will import a caseload of Covid into Thailand when China – where the virus is rampant – reopens its border on Sunday, January 8. Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was not clear about when the measure would come into effect. It...

BANGKOK: Thailand has seen its first case of human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus inside the country, a health official said on Friday (Jan 31), as it raised its total number of cases to 19, the second-highest after China. The first patient to contract the virus inside Thailand is a Thai taxi driver, said Tanarak Pipat, deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control. "(He) ...does not have the record of travelling to China, and it is likely that he was infected (by) a sick traveller from China," Tanarak said. Authorities have conducted virus scans on 13 people, including three...